Corporate IT Department Information

DoView
version 4.0 Technical Information for Corporate IT Departments

Introduction

This sheet answers Corporate IT Departments technical questions about DoView. It can help in the development of a business case for purchasing DoView. Corporate site licenses are available for
DoView, see (http://www.doview.com/buy.html). If you have any technical or purchase questions, please contract us using the Contact form.

DoView helps users draw visual outcomes models for visual strategic planning, monitoring, performance management, evaluation, risk management, evidence-based practice and related fields. They are also known as: strategy maps; logic models; program logics; intervention logics; program theories; theories of change; ends-means diagrams; and Outcomes DoViews. They are used in strategic
planning, monitoring, evaluation, evidence-based practice and related fields.
They visualize a scalable visual model of all of the steps needed to achieve higher-level
outcomes within a program, organization or sector. DoView is being used in over 40 countries in private, academic, not-for-profit and government settings.

DoView meets a set of user needs not met by generic drawing
software, these are:

It lets the user
build a ‘model’ rather than just make a ‘drawing’. It records the relationships between elements in the model in a way that drawing software does not. The DoView Link between boxes can be represented as a drawn line link if the user wants. However, the DoView links remain even if the user erases the drawn line link for presentational purposes. Link lines can then be 'turned on' without having to redraw them.

DoView encourages
users to develop models broken up into modules (compact 1 x 1 pages)
and supports quick hyperlink drill-down navigation between them (page-jumps).These compact diagrams are of a size
optimized for dataprojecting, viewing as HTML, viewing as a
PDF, and for printing out on letter/A4 paper. This ensures portability across
different media. Such modularity also has the advantage of increasing
efficiency by encouraging sharing and reuse of similar modules from different
models (similar to object orientated programming in software design). Generic drawing software does not tend to support the rapid real-time development and elegant navigation of modular models.

DoView has been
optimized for building and working with dataprojected outcomes models in
real-time in meetings (when compact models are being used it is optimized for 1024 x 768 resolution used on most dataprojectors). This increases meeting productivity and reduces workload
by eliminating the need to draw a model first on a whiteboard and then transfer it to drawing software. DoView is much easier for non-technical people to use in front of a group rather than using bloatware drawing software in real-time. A group seeing the model built in real-time in front of them is much more likely to 'own' the model as their own.

DoView limits the
formatting options available to the user for three reasons. First, to ensure
that they do not create models which cannot be easily viewed in different
media; second, to make sure its very simple for users to use in real-time in front of an
audience when a model is dataprojected; third, because all of the possible
formatting features are being used in progressive releases of DoView to
visualize different aspects of outcomes models. The complexity of the choices available in standard drawing software overwhelms a user and their audience when it is used in real-time in meetings.

With just a couple of clicks DoView can create a fully featured web-based model ready for putting up on an intranet or the internet (either by FTP, or immediately by saving it to the public folder in Dropbox - a free webpages file sharing platform). This web page model has the innovative feature that a copy of the original file which created the web page model can be included with the web page model. Anyone who is interested in using the web page model themselves can immediately download it, and if they have DoView installed, can immediately edit it and use it for their own purposes. Those viewing the model can also immediately download a PDF version of the model. Normal drawing software does not typically provide this type of download functionality. It encourages scalable and rapid dissemination of best-practice examples.

DoView includes an innovative cloning feature so that the same object can exist in many places within a model (clones are 'live copies' that are replicants of each other). Clones make it very simple to update such objects by just editing them in one place in the model. Clones also help avoid a technical problem in drawing models called 'siloing'. This is where lower-level steps are exclusively nested under higher-level outcomes. This distorts the model's representation of the causality operating in real-world programs (where a good lower-level strategy (a key driver) may often contribute to a number of higher-level outcomes).

As a tool for developing visual strategic plans and monitoring and evaluation plans, DoView provides a real productivity boost because such plans can be created in something like 1/2 the time it takes to create a traditional text-based narrative plan.

What
are the system requirements?

DoView for PC's minimum requirements are a 600 Mhz Pentium III with 128MB of memory. It runs on Windows 7, Vista and XP (Windows 2000 and below are not supported). DoView for Mac requires OS X 10.5 or later and an Intel Processor. A beta version is available for Mountain Lion, OS X 10.8.

How
can information be outputted and exported from DoView?

Individual pages within DoView can be copied and pasted via Windows Clipboard into external software. DoView produces PDF
versions of its models that can be used for printing a model and for
emailing a model to people who do not have DoView installed.

DoView
allows the creation of a navigable HTML version of a DoView model. This can then
be put up on any intranet or the internet via FTP. In addition it can be immediately published to the web using the free Dropbox file sharing platform by saving the webpage version to the public folder within Dropbox.

An option is provided when creating
a webpage version of a DoView model such that those browsing the model on the web can download and
open the original DoView file from which the webpage model was created. The webpage model can also include a PDF version of the model for printing. A web page model with a copy of the original DoView model included is an
effective way for template copies of DoView files to be available for easy
distribution to users via an intranet or the internet.

The webpage version of a
DoView model is saved in a subdirectory of the user's choice, it includes the
home page of the model with a name given by the user at the time of creating
the webpage version of the model, plus two subdirectories with the files that make
up the pages within the model.

DoView allows files to be saved and
opened in the native DoView format; in compressed XML and in uncompressed XML.
Individual diagrams within a model can be cut and pasted using Windows
Clipboard to standard office software (e.g. Word, Powerpoint, Outlook etc).

What
are the Installation requirements and changes to registry settings?

The software requires no
special privileges to run. However the installer requires administrative privileges. All files are installed within the program installation directory. No registry settings are
altered apart from those necessary for uninstallation, private application
data, and establishing file associations for the DoView file formats.

The software itself does
not directly access the network. DoView opens the users default web-browser
in order to show web pages linked to by users when they click on an external
hyperlink on a diagram.

What
help and support is available?

From the point of view of
a corporate IT department, DoView’s specific feature set and high usability mean
that it will have low user support demands in comparison to more complex
generic drawing software.

Extensive resources for users are available on the DoView Resource page (http://www.doview.com/resources.html). These include many additional videos on using DoView, template models, one page tip sheets and articles.

Email support is offered via general (at) doview.com.

What
is the update policy?

DoView is being enhanced
in response to user feedback. So far all updates have been no-cost updates. Security and bug fixes for version 3.XX are
free. In addition, new features are often added at no cost. Each release in version 3.XX is a full release copy of
DoView (not just an update). Users simply uninstall DoView and install the new
version by downloading it from http://www.doview.com/update.html (the
installer is approximately 40 Mbytes) (The MAC .dmg file is approximately 40 Mbytes). For an administered network, depending
on the set-up, an administrator could download the installer for the new
version, uninstall the earlier versions of DoView from the machines that have
it on them and install the new version on the machines. Registration
carries over to new installations of DoView even after it has been uninstalled,
so there is no need to reregister registered copies.

A registration serial number is sent by email to the
purchaser. The registration serial number is entered into the 30-day trial
version of the software and this converts the trial version into a fully
licensed version that will continue to function indefinitely. One license can
be used by one user on up to two of their machines (e.g. a desktop and a
notebook).

For further information
on any technical aspect of DoView please contact us at general (at) doview.com.